COLD

'There is something very serious and fundamental about cold.'
Philip Larkin

Snow. No roofs this morning; alps, ominous message
   for the jackdaws prospecting maps of melt.
Something precipitates an avalanche;

a tablecloth slips off noisily
    pouring heavy laundry into detergent,
a basin of virgin textiles, pocked distinctively

with ice crystals. Your shovel violates this blanchissage
   with useful bustle, urgency pretends;
but it's helpless as the swallowed road on which

the air lets fall again a lacier
   organza snow-veil; winter bridal
the muffled dog fouls briefly. Don't the cedars
...